Several months passed. Then this man, having been appointed to a collectorship, threw away the letter. A policeman picked it up and presented it to a judge, who immediately fell upon these words: "Murderous intentions, taken another route, found refuge, captured, Lombardo. The peasant was imprisoned, questioned, almost tortured. He knew nothing. They kept him imprisoned, and a severe examination was begun.

It is precisely because this comfort has been necessary to bring grief to birth—and will return moreover at intervals to calm it—that men can be sincere with each other, and even with themselves, when they pride themselves upon a woman’s kindness to them, although, taking things all in all, at the heart of their intimacy there lurks continually in a secret fashion, unavowed to the rest of the world, or revealed unintentionally by questions, inquiries, a painful uncertainty.